I’m a Lawn Care Failure

When we bought the Condo, Husband and I were positively dancing when we learned that we would never have to mow a yard again! Between the new sod covering our itty bitty yard and the lawn service who mows the entire community we though that keeping our yard nice and green and grass filled would be one of the easiest Home Owner’s Association rules we had to follow.

Famous last words.

• First there was the Japanese Beatle and grub invasion that killed all my landscaping and left brown patches in the yard.

• Then there is Winston, the boxer next door who piddles nuclear waste, kills the grass, and neither our neighbor nor us can get anything to grow in those spots.

• Next our HOA switched to a lawn service that does not clean their machines after each job. My once pristine sod is full of weeds and crab grass thanks to them.

The brown patch remains in this old photo. 
Grubs killed all of the plants in the flower bed.

Over the years, I have tried valiantly and failed to grow grass in my yard. I dealt with the grub and beetles by applying Milky Spore to the yard and flowerbeds at the end of the summer. The following year I didn’t have new grub brown patches in the lawn. The old ones were a little smaller. A bit of grass seed and boom! Problem solved!

Ha.

I tried organic seed, regular seed, cheap seed, and expensive seed with little to no luck. If (and when if you are me) the grass seed dries out, it dies.

Apparently, grass seed need water to grow.

Who knew?

I’ve pretty much given up with trying to grow new grass.

I got an opportunity to try Scott’s Turf Builder grass seed. I wrestled with the decision. Scott’s headquarters is super local to me – yay! But I’m not a fan of synthetic fertilizers (especially the stuff my lawn service uses) – boo. However, I use Scott’s organic potting soil with chicken poo and my potted herbs grow beautifully – yay! Then I got a letter from the HOA about the brown spots in my yard – boo.

After much thought, I went for it. The thing that tipped the scales is that Scott’s Turf Builder has Water Smart, a dog and kid friendly fertilizer that coats the seed and keeps it from drying out in between watering. Remembering to water grass seed is the thing that trips me up every summer.

Before I seeded the spots in the lawn, I dug the cruddy, clay soil out of each brown spot and bare patch. I replaced it with nice rich soil from the garden center. I sprinkled grass seed grass seed on the dirt. I staked it off so the lawn service won’t mow over it, watered it and waited.

With all of the unseasonable cold weather and constant rain, I haven’t had to water the lawn. The grass seed hasn’t gone dry either. Yay!

The prognosis is good. The seed is just starting to grow. I took photos but they didn’t show much of the progress.

Maybe if I sing to it, my grass will keep growing?

Husband thinks the better course of action is to sign up forcare tips, custom feeding reminders and special offers from Scotts.

Whatev. I can do both.

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Disclosure:  Scott’s and the One 2 One Network supplied me with a sample bag of Scott’s Turf Builder to facilitate this review. This did not have any bearing on my review. All opinions are my own and I stand by them.